In October 1528
through January 1529 Martin Luther made official visitations to congregations in
the regions of Saxony and Meissen in
Germany. He was appalled by the lack
of knowledge of the Christian faith among the people. In the introduction to his
Small Catechism he writes: “The deplorable, wretched deprivation that I
recently encountered while I was a visitor has constrained and compelled me to
prepare this catechism, or Christian instruction, in such a brief, plain, and
simple version. Dear God, what misery I beheld! The ordinary person, especially
in the villages, knows absolutely nothing about the Christian faith, and
unfortunately many pastors are completely unskilled and incompetent teachers.
Yet supposedly they all bear the name Christian, are baptized, and receive the
holy sacrament, even though they do not know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or
the Ten Commandments! As a result they live like simple cattle or irrational
pigs and, despite the fact that the gospel has returned, have mastered the fine
art of misusing their freedom.”[1]

Appalled by the
lack of training among the clergy, Luther wrote the Large Catechism for them. He bemoaned
how negligent so many clergy were in studying the basics of the Christian faith.
He mocked those who thought they were too learned to spend time on the basics.
He said of himself, “I am also a doctor
and a preacher, just as learned and experienced as all of them who are so high
and mighty. Nevertheless, each morning, and whenever else I have time, I do as a
child who is being taught the catechism and I read and recite word for word the
Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Psalms, etc.”[2]

Luther had little
patience with those who neglected the basics of the faith “out of pure laziness and concern for their
bellies.” In Luther’s Preface to the Large Catechism he advocates a change of
vocation for them: “Oh, these shameful
gluttons and servants of their bellies are better suited to be swineherds and
keepers of dogs than guardians of souls and pastors.”[3]

Now Pastor Robyn
and I are not afraid that the ghost of Martin Luther will come back to visit our
congregation and haunt us during this 500th Anniversary of the
Reformation. Nonetheless, we and the worship planners thought this summer would
be a fitting time to preach a sermon series on the Ten Commandments, the first
topic addressed in Luther’s Small and
Large Catechisms. Surely followers of
Jesus can benefit from getting back to the basics on a regular basis. My task
today is to introduce the Ten Commandments and to focus on the First
Commandment: “You shall have no other
gods.”

In our faith
tradition there has been a tendency to associate the Old Testament with the Law
and to associate the New Testament with the Gospel. The Ten Commandments are
viewed as the summation of the Law. The Gospel is viewed as the good news of
God’s gracious activity in Jesus Christ. It is striking, however, that in Exodus
20:1–17 the giving of the Ten Commandments is grounded in God’s gracious
activity in freeing the people of God from slavery in Egypt. As God
announces in Exodus 20:2, “I am the Lord
your God, who brought you out of the house of slavery.” Then the Lord God
gives the Ten Commandments to the people. It is also striking that in the Sermon
on the Mount Jesus makes clear that he did come to do away with the Law. As he
tells his disciples in Matthew 5:17, “do
not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not
to abolish but to fulfill.” Obeying the Ten Commandments may not earn us
salvation. But it is clear that Jesus still wants his followers to live by the
Ten Commandments. In Deuteronomy 4:40 Moses tells the people of God: “you shall keep God’s statutes and God’s
commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you.”
Clearly God intended the Ten Commandments to be a life-giving gift for God’s
people.

In the Reformation
tradition there was general agreement on the first two uses of the Law or the
Ten Commandments. The first use was the civil use. Sin and evil need to be
restrained in society and good order needs to be established. Justice must be
enforced, and crime must be deterred. The Law helps make human community
possible by setting clear limits.

The second use has
been referred to as the spiritual or pedagogical use. The Law teaches us that we
are sinners and are in need of someone to save us. It drives us to Christ, who
provides us with the gift of forgiveness. The Ten Commandments function like a
mirror, reflecting back to us where we have sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God. We could also view the Ten Commandments as spiritual warning signs. When
we are heading in the wrong direction, they flash at us: danger, danger,
danger.

The Reformers
debated over whether there was a third use of the law, what we might call the
ethical use. Once we have been forgiven that does not mean we can throw out the
Ten Commandments. As already noted, Jesus came not to abolish the Law but to
fulfill it. Obeying the Ten Commandments and doing good works may not save us.
But those saved through faith in Jesus can be guided by the Ten Commandments in
doing good works. Filled with gratitude for God’s gracious activity in Jesus, we
can take up the life-giving way of life offered in the Ten
Commandments.

In our Gospel
reading for today one of the religious leaders, an expert in the law, asked
Jesus a question to test him, “Teacher,
which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “`You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the
greatest commandment. And a second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.’” When I teach the Ten Commandments to Confirmation students, I
like to ask them a trick question, “Which
of the Ten Commandments are thesetwo
greatest commandments?” The answer is: none of them. Or as I explain, these
two greatest commandments sum up the Two Tables. The first greatest commandment
sums up the First Table, the first three commandments. The second greatest
commandment sums up the Second Table, commandments four through ten. The First
Table focuses on love of God, and the Second Table on love of neighbor. The two
classic core values in our faith tradition are love of God and love of
neighbor.The first commandment is:
“You shall have no other gods.” In
Luther’s Small Catechism, after
stating each commandment, the question is asked: “What does this mean?” Luther’s short
explanation is: “We are to fear, love,
and trust God above all things.” The first commandment is another way of
saying that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul,
and strength. Trust is at the heart of Luther’s conception of what it means to
have faith. Faith has often been viewed as believing in the right doctrines or
teachings about God. For Luther faith is trust in God. In the Large Catechism Luther explains: “to have a god is nothing else than to trust
and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the
trust and faith of the heart alone that makes both God and an idol . . .
Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your
God.”

The first
commandment directly addresses the sin of idolatry. In the time of Moses a major
concern was worshipping false gods made of precious metals, stones, or wood. In
Exodus 32, for example, Moses had to confront the people of God about
worshipping a golden calf.

Luther identified
money and property as the most common idols on earth. “There are some,” explains Luther, “who think that they have God and everything
they need when they have money and property; they trust in them and boast in
them so stubbornly and securely that they care for no one else. They, too, have
a god— mammon by name, that is, money and property— on which they set their
whole heart.” Luther adds that “those
who boast of great learning, wisdom, power, prestige, family, and honor and who
trust in them have a god also, but not the one, true God.”[4]Luther’s point is that whatever our heart clings to most tightly is our god.
Only the one true God, the God who freed the Israelites from slavery, the God
who raised Jesus from the dead, is worthy of our ultimate
trust.

Frederick Buechner
defines “idolatry” as “the practice of
ascribing absolute value to things of relative worth.” “Under certain
circumstances,” explains Buechner, “money, patriotism, sexual freedom, moral
principles, family loyalty, physical health, social or intellectual preeminence,
and so on are fine things to have around, but to make them the standard by which
all other values are measured, to make them your masters, to look to them to
justify your life and save your soul is the sheerest folly. They just aren’t up
to it.”[5]Buechner’s point is that only God is worthy of being ascribed absolute
value. To fulfill the first commandment is to ascribe absolute value to
God.

In the “Freedom of
a Christian” Luther affirms that those who fulfill the first commandment, who
put their full trust in God, who cling to God with their whole heart, will have
“no difficulty in fulfilling all the
rest.” Next week we will focus on the other two commandments in the first
table: the second commandment— “You shall
not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God”; and the third
commandment— “Remember the sabbath day,
and keep it holy.” We shall see how they are, like the first commandment, a
life-giving gift from God.

In Jesus’ name,
AMEN.

[1]The Book of Concord, edited by Robert
Kolb and Timothy Wengert, 347–48.